


One

by Zip001



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff, High school teachers AU, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 03:51:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zip001/pseuds/Zip001
Summary: This was written as a birthday gift to eilit, who is such an amazing Stansa writer (I bow to her greatness). I was mightily assisted by TommyGinger who picked the perfect poem for Stannis, a high school lit teacher from hell, to recite to Sansa, a high school choir teacher.All typos and grammar mistakes mine (as an aside, I am willing to take any "just" punishment from Stannis (smirk)).





	One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eilit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eilit/gifts).



She was running late. 

While she normally did not like being late and did almost everything in her power to always be on time, it was not the real reason why she booked it from her classroom to the teacher lunchroom. The reason is the man in the crisp white linen shirt, rolled up sleeves showing his muscular arms, with his back towards her. They had only one hour every weekday together, and that hour was usually the highlight of day. Now they had only forty-five minutes!

She heard so much about him, the man the kids called Teacher from Hell (TFH for short) and most of his colleagues agreed, calling him even worst names (Stannus being the cleanest of them). And it was mainly because Petyr, the drama teacher, and Ramsey, bio teacher, both hated him with such a vengeance, that she decided to sit next to him during lunch, to escape their unpleasant company. Every second she spent with those two, she wanted to take a long bath (Lush bath bombs). They were so gross - Petyr had an unhealthy fascination with her mother and Ramsey was alway blabbing about the strange stuff he found while skinning animals he hunted down or from the frog biopsies he made the kids do seemingly every week.

He was initially wary of her, the new choir teacher, fresh out of music school. While he was not overtly hostile towards her, unlike some of the female teachers who thought she was some type of competition, he was distant after doing the cursory nod to acknowledge her existence after she chirped her greetings. When she sat down, he would move his chair slightly away from her and get back to his reading.

It was actually nice, to not have the unwanted attentions of men who wanted to get into her pants and of women who hated her. It did not bother her as it gave her time to write songs.

After one week of her eating with him, she started noticing things about him. Firstly, he smelled nice, which sounded weird, but he no longer moved away from her and actually scooted closer to her. He had beautiful blue eyes, especially when he looked in wonder at her “exotic” meals or smiled at something she said. And she would get warm and fuzzy everything he smiled at her. She wished he smiled more rather than frowning.

He would curiously peer at her lunch, which was immaculately packed in her lunch bag that she made herself with the lovely Liberty London fabric that Father got for her birthday. While he always had the same meal, a ham and swiss cheese sandwich, she would have quinoa, pecans, cranberry and cauliflower salad, or cheese and fruit, or pasta salad with tiny bocconcini balls, or cold watercress soup with a swirl of pesto oil and creme fraiche. And she started offering him a taste (giving him a clean spoon or fork (she always packed two just in case) and letting him choose his bite), and he would usually smile in appreciation. 

Those bites lead to them actually sharing their meals, with him neatly cutting his sandwich in half for her and him. He did one of his patented frowns when she brought a tiny container of mango chutney to doctor his sandwich, as if to say that she should not mess with perfection. She recalled with a giggle that he also frowned, in fact gagged, when he tried her spicy chicken vindaloo, (he actually accused her of trying to kill him) but was able to endure it with healthy spoonfuls of cool raita and crispy naan breads.

But it was not food that brought them together or their desire for respite from the madness around them, the petty rumors and the politics.

She could not believe it when at their last lunch break, he removed his glasses and started to recite lines to her of one of her favorite poems from William Butler Yeats.

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,” he began, his voice low and deep, “And nodding by the fire, take down this book.”

“And slowly read, and dream of the soft look,” she continued with a smile, “Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.” That was when she really looked into his blue eyes and melted.

“How many loved your moments of glad grace,  
And loved your beauty with love false or true,  
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,  
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”

She would have kissed him right then and there but the school bell rang, breaking the spell as they both noticed their colleagues staring curiously at them. And being a fool, skittish like a young foal as her nanny Ole Nan would say, she sprinted out, muttering something about the spring chorale. 

She was a coward, cursing herself throughout the rest of day and all throughout the night as she tossed and turned. She wanted to be loved, really loved, but had her heart broken so many times that she no longer jumped into the abyss, wanting to guard her fragile heart.

The next morn she vowed to be brave. 

Underneath his grim exterior was a man with such a lovely soul, who really understood her. As soon as he recited those lines about her pilgrim soul, she knew his heart.

Because she had choir practice in period 0 for the upcoming spring chorale, she did not have a chance to meet him before class started the next day. And because her soloist had a melt-down just before lunch, she was late! He must have thought the worst.

She stopped by the door and stared at his back, which was uncharacteristically hunched.

‘I am a wolf.’

With a few long strides, she stood before him, holding his hand and loudly recited a poem from Christina Rossetti.

“I loved you first: but afterwards your love  
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song  
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.  
Which owes the other most? my love was long,  
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;  
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me  
And loved me for what might or might not be –  
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.  
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’  
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,  
For one is both and both are one in love:  
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’  
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,  
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.”

He joined his voice with hers, and when they both said the last word “one,” they became one (Stansa for those who are curious).

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that Stannis started reciting is "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats. The line re pilgrim soul was just perf!!!!! Thank you so much @yourtommyginger!!!!
> 
> The poem that Sansa recited to Stannis is "I loved you first: but afterwards your love" by Christina Rossetti. I thought it fit with Stannis being the first to make a grand (at least to me) overture whilst Sansa made smaller gestures of care.


End file.
